Three Hundred and Sixty Five
by Stabson
Summary: It may seem like a lot, but it goes by fast when it's all you've got.
1. Day One

**DAY ONE**

Elliot's stomach is killing him. He's been shifting in his chair for the past two or three minutes, trying to hold back the grimaces that push their way onto his face, but relief hasn't come. He shifts again, and again, and finally collapses back against his chair and resigns himself to the fact that this pain isn't going away. He wishes he did pick up the pain meds prescribed to him earlier in the day.

But it's past seven o'clock now. Munch and Fin have gone, Cragen is locked inside his office, and the squad room is slowly beginning to clear out for the night. It's been an uneventful day. He's grateful for both the potential victims and himself- his head has been so clouded he doubts he'd be any help solving anything.

Despite the end of their shift, his partner still sits across the conjoined pair of desks with files spread out in front of her. It's a façade. He knows she's doing just as little work as he is as he squirms in his seat, trying and failing to steal just a moment of peace. Reality is, she wants to go home to her empty apartment as much as he does. That's why they both find themselves there, pretending to work on the mountain of files piling on both of their desks.

Olivia leans back and stretches her arms above her head. He focuses on her, the way she holds her hands behind her, closes her eyes for a moment, and sighs, all without giving him even a glance. They've gone all day with barely a word between them. He's been trying to work up some courage to ask her to talk, but there's a mixture of apprehension and confusion swirling within him. Not to mention the consistently worsening pain in his gut and his doctor's burning words from earlier.

 _"I'm afraid it's not good news, Mr. Stabler."_

He doesn't know what to do with them. He doesn't even know how she'd react if he told her about them. Even after the moment they shared on the stoop of his apartment building, the remnants of her unannounced departure and return still cling to the two of them and everything they do. Things haven't been the same since she returned from her undercover gig. They only worsened through the course of the Sennet case.

Olivia's eyes meet his and he realizes he's been staring. Her eyebrows raise like she's surprised he's even noticing she's there. "What's up?"

His gaze drops. He was just given the perfect opportunity, but he finds his throat in knots. Maybe she doesn't have to know. Maybe he can put it off for at least a little while. Maybe if he doesn't say it, it will all go away.

Another wave of pain sears his stomach like a warning.

When he looks back up, there's skepticism in her eyes. He almost wants to squirm in his seat, but he's somehow managed to finally find a comfortable position and he doesn't want to ruin it. Finally his throat loosens enough to ask, "Will you come to dinner with me?"

"What?"

 _"What've I got, Doc, a kidney stone?"_

 _"It's far more serious than that."_

He fingers the pen in his hands, burning under the scrutiny of her gaze. He knows she's wondering why he would want to spend more time with her than necessary at the moment. As much as he'd like to say he's blameless in this, sometimes he remembers the hurt he felt as he held his phone to his ear, listening to the machine tell him how she'd dropped out of his life without so much as a note or a voicemail. He knows he's still holding back on her. He's trying, but he never wanted to extend his olive branch to her under circumstances like these.

"I need to talk to you, Olivia," he says. "Please come to dinner with me."

Olivia sets her pen down and closes her file. With her eyes still on him, she says, "Okay."

He feels both relief and anxiety at the same time.

Elliot walks next to her to the diner two blocks down. The waitress seats them in the corner next to a large window and brings them both cold glasses of water before they order their meals. Elliot orders a patty melt, one of his favorites, but barely picks at it for the twenty minutes that he sits across from her. He thought he might have been able to get some food down earlier, but now the thought of eating makes him sick. He wonders how much of it is what he has to tell her and how much of it is his symptoms.

"Alright, Elliot, what's going on?" Her words make his eyes snap upwards. "You tell me you need to talk, but you haven't said two words to me since we left the squad."

"Uh-yeah. I need to tell you that…" He trails off, reaches for his glass of water to soothe his dry throat, but can't think of the proper words to say to her. He's not ready for this. He'd almost rather leave, just like she did. Leave her so she could be pissed at him rather than mourn him.

"Spit it out, Elliot."

"I'm, uh…"

 _Say it. Just say it._ But he can't. He sits in suspended animation, gripping his glass of water, trying to find a way to say what the doctor told him earlier that morning.

 _"The biopsy came back. I'm sorry, Elliot…"_

"I'm dying."

The words spill from his lips before his mind can process them. Almost immediately, he clenches his eyes shut. _Fuck._ That's not how he wanted to say that.

Olivia sets her fork down on the table. There's a blank look on her face and for a second he's afraid of what she's going to say, but finally she speaks. "Our caseload's crazy, but you don't have to be so dramatic."

Even as she writes him off, he can hear the tremble in her voice.

"That's not what I mean, Olivia." But he knows she knows that already. "I'm sick."

"Sick with what?"

"Cancer," he rasps. It's the first time he's said it out loud and just the word makes his breath catch. Cancer. Cancer. Cancer. _Fuck._ He has cancer.

Olivia drops her eyes to her plate. He can almost see his words tumbling through her head, but she says nothing. Then, without another word, she gets up from the table and flees.

He really shouldn't be surprised. That's been the definition of their relationship lately- when things get hard, she runs. She always runs.

He reaches numbly for his wallet, throws some money down to pay the bill, and walks out the door. He shouldn't have expected anything different, but his chest still stings.

* * *

A/N: Hello everyone! Thanks for reading the first chapter of my newest. It's been a long time since I started something new, but I figured I'd try it out and it's been fun starting something with a fresh slate.

Please drop a comment below and let me know what you thought about it!

-Stabson


	2. Day Two

**DAY TWO**

Creaking from the old metal bunk wakes Elliot. He blinks a few times as his mind lazily crawls out of sleep and takes in his surroundings- he's in the crib. Through the open blinds of the window, he can see the sun as it just barely rises behind the Manhattan skyline. He rolls over and the thin mattress groans from underneath him. He's not quite ready to greet the day- he shoves his arm underneath the pillow and curls tighter under the scratchy blanket that he'd thrown over himself late last night when his eyelids were heavy and his brain was fogged with exhaustion.

He'd planned on going straight home when Olivia abandoned him in the diner the night before, but after walking the two blocks back to the precinct, his feet had carried him into the building instead of to his car. Part of him hoped that she'd done the same, but no such luck. He sat at his desk for hours under the pretense of catching up on paperwork, futilely hoping that she might walk through the door and they might be able to fix this. Finally, not able to lie to himself any longer, he clambered up the stairs and collapsed onto the bunk in which he now rests. All night, their short conversation had haunted him.

 _"_ _Our caseload is crazy, but you don't have to be so dramatic."_

 _"_ _Sick with what?"_

 _"_ _Cancer." Cancer. Cancer. I have cancer._

/

 _"_ _Cancer." Cancer. Cancer. He has cancer._

Olivia lays in bed, one arm shoved under her pillow as she stares at the wall through the darkness of her bedroom. She's finally given up on sleeping- the whole night was spent tossing and turning, caught between sleep and consciousness as his words spiraled through her head like a cyclone. _I'm dying. I'm sick. Cancer. I have cancer._ _ **I'm dying.**_

He'd said the words, but it had felt like a dream- a nightmare- like the ones that had haunted her so recently during their first separation as partners. She'd wake up drenched in cold sweat with the image of him laying on the floor of the dirty warehouse, blood pouring from his body and his voice ringing in her ears, burned into her head.

This time, a well-aimed sniper won't give them a happy ending.

Olivia can't lay still anymore. With a grumble, she pushes herself out of bed and slides into the bathroom to get ready for the day. She hadn't even asked him what kind of cancer. Or how he knew it was fatal rather than treatable.

 _He isn't. He can't be. There's no way._

No way her partner is going to be taken out by some stupid disease.

But she knows him. She knows he wouldn't have used those words unless he knew they were true. She had seen the pain in his eyes as he said them, she knows how difficult they were to say aloud. If there was even a doubt…

Olivia shakes her head. Her fist wraps around the shower faucet and turns the water hotter. She'll know in a few hours. She'll get him to explain everything then, and he'll tell her that it's all a mistake.

At least, that's what she hopes.

/

Elliot slips on a fresh undershirt from the top shelf of his locker and pulls it over his damp head. After a cool shower, the last vestiges of exhaustion settled in his bones have gone, and he almost feels like he's ready to start another day as he tucks the shirt into his unfastened trousers.

The squad room is dark, quiet and empty as he trudges down the stairs. He immediately puts on a pot of coffee, then flicks his desk lamp on and sits down. Just like always, the cushion hisses and the chair creeks as he turns towards his desk. His pen still sits next to his keyboard from the night before.

"Elliot?"

He raises his head. Don leans against the doorframe of his office, jacket slung over his arm as he examines his detective, seemingly searching for some physical reason he might be sitting at his desk in the middle of the dimly lit, nearly empty squad room when it's barely 6:30 in the morning. Apparently he finds none, because finally the captain says, "You're not due in for another hour and a half."

"Yeah."

"So what are you doing in my squad room?"

Elliot's fingers fidget in his lap as he tries to think of a feasible explanation that will satisfy his captain. Finally, he asks, "If I tell you I'm trying to finish up the Prewitt case…?"

"You put in the paperwork a week ago," Cragen says. He dumps his jacket in the office, crosses the room and leans against the side of Elliot's desk. "And now I know something really is wrong."

Elliot stands up and walks over to the coffee pot. With concentrated movements, he takes a paper cup off the stack, pours himself a cup, then sets the pot back into the machine. When he sits back down in his chair, Cragen is silent and still, watching him. His chair creaks as he sits back and his head tilts to stare at the ceiling, taking in the calm silence. After so long sitting in this chair in this squad room, he's surprised when he thinks that this is probably the first time he's ever taken the time to admire it.

His mouth opens, then immediately closes again. Just like sitting in that diner the day before, he can't seem to grasp the words to say what he needs to. Instead, he sips at the piping hot liquid in his cup. His mouth burns as words tumble from him before his mind can process them.

"I've got pancreatic cancer."

As quickly as the words fall, the urge to climb back up the stairs and go back to sleep hits him. He's suddenly exhausted again, and this time he knows cold water isn't going to solve it.

Don doesn't say a word. Instead, Elliot hears the screeching of wheels echo through the early morning quiet. His gaze falls from the ceiling and he watches the captain drag over the chair from Fin's desk. "What else did he say?"

"I've got maybe a year."

"There's nothing they can do?"

A lump rises in Elliot's throat as he shakes his head. His gaze falls to his shoes as he tries to work through the tightness in his chest. Once again, the reality of his words hit him. _Fuck_ , this is really happening.

"Olivia know?"

Elliot answers with a nod.

Cragen's hand closes tightly around his shoulder. "If you need anything…"

What he really needs is for all of this to go away. For the past twenty-four hours to be a nightmare rather than reality. And for the burning image of Olivia's wet eyes, filled with shocked anguish, to disappear from his mind and not return.

Instead of voicing those things, he simply nods again and manages to push a single word through the lump still hurting his throat. "Thanks."

It's quiet. There's no one else around and he knows there won't be for at least another hour. He feels safe here in the presence of his captain, so, for the first time since he sat in that doctor's office and heard that devastating news, Elliot allows a tear to stream down his face.

/

Olivia walks into the squad room forty-five minutes before her shift starts. Elliot is already sitting at his desk with an open case file in front of him. She wouldn't be surprised if he's been sitting there for a while- he's sunken into his chair, his dress shirt is slightly rumpled and his eyes are hollow, like he's seeing right through the words on the page.

His expression is unreadable as he raises his gaze to meet her. "Morning," he rasps. She almost shrinks back at the exhaustion in his voice.

"Morning," she answers. She sits down across from him, head spinning as she tries to summon the proper words to start the conversation she knows they need to have. The questions from earlier burn in her mind- questions that she doesn't know if she's ready to hear answers for, no matter how much she's tried to convince herself that this situation isn't as dire as he'd made it seem. So she sits, frozen in her seat, staring at him even after he lowers his gaze to the file in front of him. Either he doesn't notice her eyes on him or he doesn't care because he doesn't make mention of it. She's not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe if he'd say something, she'd gather the strength to speak.

 _You're not really dying, are you? There's treatment, isn't there?_

With a hard swallow, Olivia pulls out her own case file and begins to work. She's not ready for the harsh reality of it all. Not now. Maybe not ever.

/

Like the night before, Elliot stays long after his shift ends. While Munch and Fin say their goodnights and Olivia goes to trial prep with Casey, he sits with his feet crossed over the top of his desk and a manila folder of incomplete paperwork in his lap. There's a pen in his hand, but he doesn't even have the motivation to write his name or badge number on them. He'd done well staving off the exhaustion earlier that morning up to this point, but it's hitting him full force and the stomach pains are starting to come back.

"Hey."

When he looks up, Olivia is standing in the doorway of the squad room, hands shoved in the pockets of her jacket. He blinks to make sure she's really there. He figured that he wouldn't see her at least until the morning. She hadn't said a word to him about what they talked about the previous day, and he didn't either. It was almost too easy to pretend none of it happened.

"How'd you know I was still here?"

Olivia shrugs. "Lucky guess."

She crosses the room and sits at her desk. He stares at her, watching her eyes as they flicker around the room, settling on anything but him. For several minutes, she sits silent. Every so often she starts forward and he sees her chest hitch like she's going to say something, but nothing comes, and he's just about to give up and leave when her whisper crosses the air between them. "I'm sorry about last night."

With a shrug, he looks down at his hands as they rest folded in his lap. He knows they need to have this conversation. He knows there's limited time left to talk about these things. But he understands why she ran from him the night before. Thinking about this is almost too much to bear. "It's a lot to take in," he mumbles finally. "I know."

Olivia sighs and runs her fingers through her hair, just like he's seen her do so often when they've had a tough case. She leans forward, her brown eyes finally focusing on him. "Cancer?" she whispers. "Are they sure?"

His jaw is locked. He doesn't want to answer her- to confirm that all of this is real and not a figment of his imagination or a dream that he'll wake up from. But it's real and she needs to know. There is no running away from this.

When he speaks, his mouth is dry. "Yeah, Liv. They're sure."

Her body deflates. She sighs shakily and for the first time in a while, he knows exactly how she feels.

"And… you're really…?"

"Gonna die?" he finishes for her. Even saying the words makes him dizzy. He takes a moment to try to catch his breath, swallows, and says, "yeah." It's the only word he can manage.

The light of her desk lamp bounces off her glistening eyes. He watches her wipe at her face, stand, and close the distance between them. He doesn't move as she leans against his desk, her body so close to his that he can almost smell her, but he's almost afraid of what she's going to do next. Their eyes are locked.

"Come over," she whispers.

"Okay," he finds himself answering.

* * *

A/N: Thanks for reading. Please leave a comment down below and tell me what you think!


	3. Day Two, Cont

**DAY TWO, CONT.**

The Jets are on Thursday night football. They're getting their asses handed to them by the Jaguars, 20 to nothing. Less than a week ago, Elliot was excited for this game. Now, halfway through the second quarter with two interceptions already thrown and no points on the board, he can't find it within himself to care. He should be cursing at the TV set like he always does during a game. Yelling at the refs that can't hear him for the shitty calls they've made, groaning and slumping in his chair as Pennington overthrows a pass or gets sacked behind the line for a loss.

Instead, he takes small sips of his beer and nibbles at the remaining pizza crust on his plate, more invested in the growing pain in his abdomen than the train wreck playing out before him on the TV screen. Olivia's eyes bore holes straight through him as he leans back against the couch cushions. God, he wishes this pain would just go away for a little while. The longer it goes on, the harder it is to forget what led him here in the first place. He just wants to sit next to his best friend and watch a football game. He wants his biggest worry to be whether his favorite team will be able to score before the half ends.

Instead, all he can think about is the way his partner sits, perched on the edge of the couch, picking at the label on her beer bottle. She wants to say something to him. They haven't talked much since they left the squad- just enough to know what kind of pizza and brew they'd share and what to put on TV. Olivia's always been ambivalent towards sports, but she knows how much he enjoys them. He appreciates the gesture. Tries to forget the reason behind it- there are only so many more football games that he'll be around for.

The Jaguars score again on a pass play. The extra point is good and Olivia's TV fades to another commercial.

"There are so many treatments out there." Her voice jars him out of the Bud commercial they've both seen a thousand times, and immediately, his chest begins to burn. It's a familiar feeling, and he hates the way it swallows him up.

"Radiation… chemo…" Her voice trails off. He doesn't want to look at her. He knew this question was coming, if not from her, then from his ex-wife, from one of his kids, or from Cragen. He won't ever be able to articulate what was inside his head two days ago, when his doctor sat across from him and tried, tactfully, to let him know that his life was ending and asked which useless treatment he'd rather put his rapidly failing body through. He just remembered thinking, none of them. The side effects, the sickness, the bullshit… he's already dying. The last thing he wants is to make everything even more complicated.

He's so sick of everything being so complicated. Is it too much to ask to just get a little break from it all?

Soon it will all be over, anyway, he thinks ruefully. It won't matter. He'll be dead and gone and all the complications will go along with him.

Olivia's still staring at him. With a jolt, he reaches for the remote and stabs the power button with his thumb. The apartment falls silent. His hands continue to fumble with the remote as he avoids Olivia's gaze. He wishes that he hadn't hit that button. The silence suffocates him and it's getting harder to breathe. He swallows, lets his eyes fall closed, and tries to formulate a response with the mess inside of his head. Tries to wrap up a neat little package to hand to her that will explain this thing, that will at least help her make sense of it all. Just like everything else in their partnership, in their friendship, it's not that simple.

When he opens his eyes back up and looks at her, he almost loses his will to answer altogether. He's the one that's supposed to protect her, but at this moment, he's the cause of the pain that floods her face. He fucking hates himself for hurting her.

Maybe he should just take the damn chemo. Maybe then he might not have to see the devastation that stares at him through Olivia's eyes. He won't feel this guilt, this feeling of powerlessness that makes him sick.

He's going to have to see the same look in the eyes of his four children.

Bile rises in his throat and it takes everything in him not to be sick. He grabs the back of the couch to steady himself, but the room spins around him at a sickening pace. He has to tell his kids that he's dying. That the coming holiday season will in all likelihood be the last that they share. That he won't see Kathleen graduate college. He won't even see the twins graduate high school.

Fuck. _Fuck_ , he wishes he hadn't thought about that.

"El." Her hands squeeze his shoulders. She must have seen the nausea on his face because worry clouds her eyes as she sits next to him, trying to bring him back from the burning hole he just thrust himself in.

And it hits him again.

It needs to be this way. Hope will only hurt them more in the end.

With a hard swallow and a deep breath, he tries to remember what sent him down this path, to begin with. What had she asked?

 _"_ _There are so many treatments out there."_

Right. Right. He swallows. His lips stick together as he tries to answer her. "I made up my mind. I don't want to do that."

It's barely an answer. It's definitely not what she needs. He knows that, but it's the only thing he can force through his lips while keeping some semblance of control.

"What about your kids? You're just going to give up on them?"

His fist tightens around the back of the couch and he wills himself to stay away from that dangerous path. He knows he doesn't have the strength to pull himself back a second time.

"Of course not," he rasps. His throat clenches. He breathes through it and continues. He needs her to know- he needs to say this out loud. "I'd give them everything if I could, Olivia. But I can't cheat this."

"You don't know that," she answers. "We've come a long way… with treatment…"

For a moment, he allows himself to really look at her. Her eyes are wet and wide, and he's stuck immediately by how small she is. On the streets, in the squad room, she's always so capable that sometimes he forgets her limitations. He wants to reach out and hold her until that look- and the feeling in his chest- both disappear.

"I might get a few more months. But that doctor looked me in the eyes and told me that I'm gonna die. No matter what I try, this thing is gonna…" A violent shiver takes him. He's not cold, but he's shivering anyway and he can't make it stop. It's getting harder and harder to keep from snatching her into his arms and never letting go.

"In the end, it's not gonna matter," he finishes finally. "I'm not gonna make my kids watch me go through that. I want them to remember me… just like this. Not sick, and weak, and…"

He pauses again. His voice is locked. He breathes deeply, prays for God to give him enough strength to just get through what he has to tell her. Remembers that he's still got to do this again and almost dies just at that thought. This is hard enough. The thought of sitting his kids down rips him to shreds. It was never supposed to be like this.

/

 _"_ _In the end, it's not going to matter."_

Olivia is terrified to her core. Her partner won't look at her anymore- his jaw is locked, shoulders slumped, head hung low, but she can still see his glistening eyes. Tears haven't fallen yet, but she can see them threaten to break away and she doesn't know how she'll be able to handle it if they do. He's never, ever cried in front of her. Not even during the divorce.

 _"_ _I'm gonna die."_

She can't tear her eyes away from him. His words burn the inside of her head.

 _"_ _No matter what I try, this thing is gonna…" Gonna kill me._

There is no perp with a gun to talk down. No bloodied limb to put pressure on.

He's dying.

No chemotherapy will help. No radiation will save him. There won't be a miraculous recovery like in the movies.

 _He's dying._

She's going to lose her partner and there's nothing she can do to stop it. She can't breathe.

"If… if I've only got a year…"

His whisper cuts through the blackness that threatens to swallow her. She clings to his soft rumble. "I don't want it to be miserable, 'Livia."

The plea, wrapped in a broken whisper that she has a hard time reconciling with the unbreakable man she knows, breaks her. She cries. Hot tears blind her and she can't breathe through the knot in her throat.

"I-I… just wanna have a good year."

Just listening to that one statement, her pain doesn't matter so much anymore. The man sitting beside her has given to everyone. His wife. His kids. The victims. Her. He even gives them his death. _I'm not gonna make my kids watch me go through that._ He's doing this because he thinks it will be easier for them. And all he asks for is a good year. A good final year.

She's going to give that to him. If she has to work every second to every day of the next three hundred and sixty five, she will. She won't sleep until she's sure that, when he closes his eyes for the last time, he'll be the happiest goddamn man on the face of the Earth.

Olivia lays a hand on his shoulder. "Okay, El."

Hidden within that single word is her promise.


End file.
